Lenovo’s “For Those Who Do” Campaign Garners Higher Share-of-Voice with 18 to 34-year-olds

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 10, 2012 – Covario, a leading independent search marketing agency, and Lenovo, one of the world’s premier PC manufacturers, were recently recognized with a gold medal for having the “Best Marketing Impact” in the Sales and Marketing category of the 2012 Brandon Hall Excellence Awards.

Initially launched in late-2010, the winning award combination effectively extended Lenovo’s global “For Those Who Do” campaign. The initiative with Covario centered around a branding effort to engage difficult to reach 18 to 34-year-olds through paid search on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.

The winning strategy also encompassed an array of innovative social media tactics, including Facebook and Google TV ads, as well as
leveraging educational, environmental, and sports-related content on Lenovo’s Web pages.

As part of the program, Covario built an analytic framework to show how targeted television ads and paid search drive awareness, consideration, and ultimately purchase. Display and outdoor digital (within emerging markets) advertising were also tied together with paid search ads.

The results included shares of impressions increasing 500 percent; shares of clicks rising 55 percent; and the percentage of visitors to Lenovo Web properties going up 79 percent, with nearly 95 percent of them being first time visitors. Plus, nearly 75 percent of the visitors globally came to the website through paid search ads.

In the U.S., the effort achieved a holiday-season “share-of-voice” of 56 percent among the targeted 18 to 34-year-old set. In the U.K. and Germany, these impressions reached 51 and 63 percent, respectively.

The program’s success led Lenovo to expanded PPC (pay-per-click) advertising and social media integration as key elements of the “For Those Who Do” campaign throughout 2011 and into 2012 to several more countries, where the focus continued to be on the global interactive youth market. The campaign registering an 833 percent improvement in share-of-voice metrics for the keyword “laptops” from the second quarter of last year to the second quarter of this year.

According to Rachel Ashkin, chief operating officer of the Brandon Hall Group, “Covario and Lenovo were awarded a gold medal for exhibiting an innovative strategy to extend global brand awareness through an investment in pure ‘branding campaigns’ using paid search. They demonstrated impressive, break-through results across all categories of the program, including business alignment, marketing approach and strategy, audience connection, measurable results and overall impact.

The Brandon Hall Group is a leading analyst and research organization with expertise in talent management, learning and development, sales, marketing and executive management.

“We’re honored to share this award with our client and the talented team we work with at Lenovo,” said Jeff Johnson, senior vice president and managing director at Covario. “Brandon Hall has a rigorous set of criteria built into this program. I’m happy our focus on developing a true client partnership combined with our passion for delivering tangible ROI played a key part with the judges in selecting us for this award.”

Last month, Covario was selected for the second consecutive year as a two-time finalist by OMMA (Online Media, Marketing and Advertising) magazine for its annual Online Advertising Creativity Awards with clients Samsung and Guthy-Renker in the SEO and SEM categories, respectively. Covario was also named by OMMA as the 2011 Search Agency of the Year. Additionally, the firm was one of only nine companies selected from more than 100 considered for the 2011 Forrester Research Wave of U.S. Search Marketing Agencies.

About Covario

Covario is a leading provider of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) agency services and management solutions. The firm was selected by OMMA as the 2011 Search Agency of the Year. It was one of only nine agencies from more than 100 considered to make the 2011 Forrester Research Wave of U.S. Search Marketing Agencies. Covario is also the developer of a unique platform for cross-media optimization and attribution analysis, known as the Covario CMO Dashboard™. Headquartered in San Diego, the firm has about 200 team members worldwide. It also has offices in Chicago, London, Beijing, Tokyo, Singapore, and Sao Paulo. Covario’s growing customer base includes world leaders in technology, consumer electronics, retail, ecommerce, financial services, media, entertainment, publishing, and consumer packaged goods. More information is available at http://www.covario.com.

With more than 10,000 clients globally and 20 years of delivering world class solutions, Brandon Hall Group is the preeminent research and analyst organization focused on developing research driven solutions to drive organizational performance for emerging and large organizations. Brandon Hall Group has an extensive repository of thought leadership, research, data and expertise in Talent Management, Learning & Development, Executive Management, Sales and Marketing.

Brandon Hall Group is a preeminent research and analyst firm, with more than 10,000 clients globally and more than 20 years of delivering Research-Based Solutions that Empower Excellence in Organizations.